Dive Brief:
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Researchers at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found higher sodium intake can increase lightheadedness, according to a release. Their study was published Jan. 28 in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension.
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The release noted the finding runs counter to a common recommendation that adults with so-called "postural lightheadedness," or lightheadedness when moving from a seated to a standing position, increase their sodium intake to help prevent it.
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"Our study has real clinical and research implications," Stephen Juraschek, the study’s corresponding author and a primary care physician at BIDMC, said in the release. "Our results serve to caution health practitioners against recommending increased sodium intake as a universal treatment for lightheadedness. Additionally, our results demonstrate the need for additional research to understand the role of sodium, and more broadly of diet, on lightheadedness."
Dive Insight:
Increasing sodium consumption had been thought to reduce lightheadedness, but this study says the opposite is true. According to the BIDMC release, "concerns about reducing sodium causing lightheadedness may not be scientifically based," and using sodium to treat lightheadedness "could have negative effects on cardiovascular health."
It's hard to tell what this might mean for salt as an ingredient. Corresponding author Stephen Juraschek suggested health practitioners check patient symptoms after initiating sodium treatment and question the approach. He added more research is needed to better understand how sodium influences physical functions, particularly in older adults, who tended to see more reduction of lightheadedness with more sodium.
It's also unclear how the misconception got started that higher sodium intake could help relieve lightheadedness. Some experts have said certain forms of dizziness, including lightheadedness and feeling disoriented or unbalanced, may be relieved by restricting sodium and potentially cutting back on alcohol, caffeine and nicotine.
Barring additional research with more definitive findings, consumers may see these results as sufficient reason to cut back on sodium intake — if they haven't already. Concerns over sodium's links with heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure have increased in recent years and pushed demands to reduce salt in prepared and other processed foods.
The average per-capita daily sodium consumption in the U.S. is approximately 3,400 milligrams, or almost 50% more than the recommended level. In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration published draft voluntary targets to limit sodium consumption to 3,000 mg daily by 2018 and 2,300 mg daily by 2026. The most recent Dietary Guidelines recommend less than 2,300 mg daily, which is about 1 teaspoon.
Food manufacturers have long explored ways to reduce sodium in their products. Campbell stated in 2006 it would use low-sodium sea salt in some new and reformulated soup recipes, Unilever committed in 2009 to cut sodium across its 22,000 products and PepsiCo announced in 2010 it was developing a special type of salt to reduce sodium in Lay's potato chips.
Natural salt-reduction strategies are of particular interest to the food industry these days, with ingredients made from mushrooms, milk and yeast extracts, among other sources, drawing increased attention.
These developments appear to be having an impact. According to a nationwide study published in 2017 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, sodium levels in packaged foods dropped by 12% between 2000 and 2014. It's possible additional findings like the one from this study could help to drive up that percentage, along with the number of manufacturers meeting the FDA's voluntary sodium-reduction guidelines.